NEW REPUBLICANS: MEET THE OLD REPUBLICANS

The New York Times has an editorial in today's paper on The New Republicans, which argues that the 21st-century GOP has embraced big government in a way that is very much at odds with its allegedly historic support for"smaller government."

That's news to me. The modern GOP has been"me-tooing" the growth of government for most of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some have tried to slow the increase in government, but the current crop has endorsed deep deficits, Medicare spending increases, vast increases in defense spending and corporate welfare, major foreign adventures, and so forth.

In many ways, this" change" in the Republican Party harks back to its 19th-century Civil War-era origins, when it embraced national government domination, protective tariffs, business subsidies, monetary inflation, and conscription. Indeed, it was the Democratic Party, the Jeffersonians and Jacksonians in the 19th century, that was the"small government" party. My, my, how times have changed. Now, both parties fight over how large the US government can be!